From time to time, I send out emails to clients asking for comments, suggestions, or experiences. 

This response discusses a baker's personal journey and how the training provided tools she needed to improve her financial situation.

"After the first month, I raised prices by 10%. Every bride ordered. Two months later, my prices were raised by 20%. Once again, every bride ordered.  After 3 months, 16 out of my 20 consultations were booked at 30% higher prices." 

Ed, this letter is a celebration of my personal journey over those who doubted me, and the fear of thinking my cakes were not worth more.

I'm sharing my story, because your philosophy of sharing knowledge and wisdom with others has placed me on a path to do the same. 

The wisdom I possess is not a success story. Mine is one of despair, loneliness, and wanting to be relevant, but never seeming to be. The wisdom I hope to share in the future is one of helping women avoid the mistakes and bad choices I've made. 

My goal is to eventually help battered women, women who feel like they have no where to turn, because I know how it feels. I've been there. Fortunately, the money I'm now earning will help me do that.

To make bakers understand how much you have meant to my family, I'm giving a little background about myself.

I'm a single mom with 2 children. When my boyfriend didn't return home one night, I was devastated. 

At the time, I worked as a cake decorator for a local grocery store, but the wage wasn't enough to take care of the three of us. That's when I decided to start baking and selling cakes from home.  

I worked long hours and hustled like crazy, but the income from their sales was still not enough. That led me to try to bake more wedding cakes, because they brought in more money.

However, there was a problem: only 4 out of 10 brides would order from me. It wasn't that my prices were too high, because they were 30% lower than any bakery. I found brides weren't totally comfortable ordering from a home baker.

It was frustrating because I didn't know how to overcome their doubts.

Then, like a sign from the almighty, I received an email from the Wedding Cake Sales Academy. You were offering a free series of videos discussing the issue of "trust" within wedding cake sales. 

Altogether, I received 10 emails. The insight and information you shared was unlike anything I've read from other marketing people. It all made sense. It was stuff I could actually do that would help me.

Besides that, I was hooked. I said to myself, this man knows what he's talking about. If he knows this much about trust, what else can he teach me? 

So, I called you and started asking questions about everything that I couldn't figure out myself about baking and selling wedding cakes.  We talked for over an hour.

That's not all. You asked about my kids, my home bakery, my hopes, dreams, and my future. I've never had such a conversation with a person I've just met. It was enlightening, positive, and heart-warming all at the same time.

It was then I realized if I got his training I would be getting more than strategies and techniques, I would be gaining a friend full of guidance. I knew you would be a person I could turn to help me with my entire home bakery business. Best of all, you would be a person who actually cared about my situation.

Now, let's fast-forward. It's been a year and a half. I've gone from offering all-occassion cakes at low prices, to raising prices by 30%.

As for my wedding cakes,

"After the first month, I raised prices by 10%. Every bride ordered. Two months later, my prices were raised by 20%. Once again, every bride ordered.  After 3 months, 16 out of my 20 consultations were booked at 30% higher prices." 

After gaining the ability to get 30% higher prices, I gave you a dose of your own medicine. I told you your training was too cheap compared to how much extra money a baker like me brings in from your mentoring. I said you should raise your price by 30%.

Not me, of course, but for other cake decorators :)

You laughed and laughed, and then said, "It's not every day someone is honest and says your prices are too low. Do you know anyone who could help me with that?" 

For me, the best part of the training was not the training.

It's having a connection with a person who first cares about me, my family, and my dreams. Then, delivers what I need  through the training.  

That's the "keeping-it-real" Ed I know. Bless your heart.